LITTLE ROCK - Yarnell's Premium Ice Cream announced Thursday that it has to lay off 200 workers and shut its doors after nearly 80 years in business because of a decline in ice cream sales and rising prices that it says has hit the industry hard.

The company announced it is stopping production indefinitely and told its workers that they will be paid through every day worked, but not beyond that. About 75 percent of the company's workers are based at the Searcy headquarters. The rest are located throughout Arkansas, Tennessee and Mississippi.

Christina Yarnell, chief executive officer, said the company had considered other avenues for keeping the company afloat after "an extremely tough year for the ice cream industry in general."

"However, we've been unable to obtain additional financing from our lenders or locate a buyer, and have come to the difficult decision that the appropriate course of action is to shut our doors," she said in a statement released by the company.

A small team will remain working at the company's headquarters through Aug. 27. Yarnell's has been in operation since 1932 and grew from a small family-owned operation to one that delivered ice cream throughout Arkansas, Missouri, Tennessee, Mississippi and Louisiana.

The company began with Ray Yarnell, Christina Yarnell's great-grandfather, and his wife and son counting themselves among the 13 employees that ran operations and made deliveries in four trucks.

"Ceasing operations is heartbreaking because we have prided ourselves on keeping our roots in Arkansas, particularly Searcy," Christina Yarnell said.

A spokesman for Gov. Mike Beebe, who grew up in the Searcy area, said the governor was saddened by the news of Yarnell's closing. At its 75th anniversary celebration, Beebe reminisced about drinking vanilla milkshakes with Yarnell's ice cream at a corner drug store when he was a child.

"Of course the governor has a deep history with them too, since they're both from Searcy," Beebe spokesman Matt DeCample said.